Changing seasons, short form literature and weekend football

Clouds continue to hang around here in the wake of our first Pineapple Express storm of the season. The Music By The Sea Festival wrapped up late last night (I was home again after midnight) after three full days of community music-making, with a few professional ringers thrown into our midst. It was a multi-generational event which sprang out of a group of local Bowen Island families who were long time regulars at the Nimblefingers Festival in Sorrento, BC. As a result there was a strong core of bluegrass and Americana music-making at MBTS, which suits me fine. Bluegrass is like folk jazz. Simple chord progressions and beautiful melodies and harmony singing, but incredible virtuosity on the instrumental side, including a strong value on improvised breaks and solos. It is massively accessible music, but for the performer the sky is the limit in terms of technique and creative possibilities.

Importantly, the gathering brought together many Bowen Islander, including several who left the island years ago. The music scene when I moved here was rich and vibrant and diverse and it withered a little as we made the transition between the 1970s-1990s nearly intentional community of interesting characters to a place where property became a financial investment. Since COVID, our demographics have radically shifted and there is more of a feeling of intentional community again. People are moving here for something other than what might be a decent return on a real estate investment. Make no mistake, this is still a massively unaffordable place to live, and our best efforts to address it are swallowed in a context of general inaction and apathy about structural policy solutions. But. There is a revival of community going on here, and I met many people this weekend who are my neighbours and with whom I know I will be making music this year and into the future.

I love short forms of writing. Poetry, short stories, short novels. And aphorisms. There is something about the pithy wisdom contained in a single sentence that can make it powerful. A well crafted aphorism has a rhythm to it as well. It swings, like a jazz lick. And like a lick, it evokes something timeless and connected to an ecosystem of meaning. Peter Limberger lives aphorisms too and here he writes about two medieval aphorists, Baltasar Gracián (1601–1658), a Jesuit priest who wrote The Art of Worldly Wisdom and Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680), a French nobleman who wrote a collection of Maxims, while also pointing to his favourite, Nicolás Gómez Dávila.

Sometimes questions are like aphorisms. One has to be careful asking questions that are beautiful in their own right. Questions occasionally try too hard to impress. They aim too much for a response that is in awe of the question itself. Mary Oliver’s “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” is one of those. But asking “What time is it?” Is a question that dances ever so lightly on the fence between genuine curiosity and profound insight in its own right. Tenneson writes “I used to see people more often resist these kind of questions. It was resistance that saw some fluff and said, “let’s get to the real work.” These days, oh gosh, so many more people recognize these questions are the real work. Or are the real contexting that helps us get to the real work.” Amen.

Life is just a long conversation that we drop into for a bit. Patti Digh:

Life, then, is less about owning the discussion and more about showing up to it. Listening well. Speaking honestly. Departing graciously. And trusting that the conversation—like life itself—will carry on.

Perhaps the real measure is not how loudly or how often we speak, but how we change in the process. We arrive thinking we understand the argument; we leave having been shaped by the voices around us. We are participants, yes, but also apprentices to the human story—learning from those who came before, influencing those who come after, even in ways we’ll never know.

Some day, someone else will walk into the same parlor after we’ve gone. They’ll hear the echoes of our words, softened by time, folded into the larger chorus. They may not know our name, but they will inherit a conversation made—if we’ve done our part—slightly kinder, richer, and more open than when we found it.

A decent start to the Premier League season for Tottenham. After an early goal from Richarlison, Spurs were a bit disjointed for the rest of the first half. They came out ganagbusters in the second though and Richarlison scored his second from a beautiful scissor kick off a Kudus delivery. Kudus impressed with his flair and quickness. Brennan Johnson scored the third for an emphatic win in the end.

The latest TSS Rover to turn pro is Aislin Streicek, who played for us in 2022 and 2023 and who was signed by Celtic FC to a two year contract. She made her first appearance yesterday coming off the bench in a 2-1 win over Hearts. Watching and helping young players turn professional is why we do what we do at our little second division Canadian club.